06/12/2024
Cognitive dissonance = the mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes
–> Cognitive Dissonance Theory was developed by Leon Festinger
According to Festinger (1962), people are motivated to reduce the resulting discomfort by either:
a) changing their beliefs,
b) acquiring new information to justify the inconsistency,
c) minimizing the importance of the conflict.
Cognitive dissonance can be expressed with an equation, too:
\[ \begin{aligned} D &= \frac{|B_1 - B_2|}{I} \\ \text{Where:} \\ B_1 &= \text{Belief 1 (e.g., Smoking is harmful)} \\ B_2 &= \text{Belief 2 (e.g., I smoke regularly)} \\ I &= \text{Importance of beliefs (higher value = greater importance)} \\ \end{aligned} \]
The following is an example of how one could perform a linear regression to analyze the relationship between a persons’ dissonance level and their justification behavior:
Example taken from the show F R I E N D S
Presentation Exercise 2